Demons

Oh dancing lords in all your glory
Your red fire fills souls with light
So brilliant, so intriguing
We fight to enter your empty heart
Build a home inside your power

Take us, like you would a cur
What use is this world if one exists above and one below?
Disbelief is fatiguing and I am tired too
Maybe your blameless heat can cure me
Maybe your admonishment can beat my soul out of me

Bake us, cook us in oil
What use is my soul if this isn’t where it’s supposed to be?
You’ll tell me next I should never have thought any thought at all
Because thoughts make me weary and my love drains
I’m tired, I may wither but thoughts stay
Until the very last breath I breathe in and out

Charge into us, break us up
What use are my breaths if all they do is pump blood through me
Letting me live- even fruit-flies live! Maybe better too-
They aren’t bogged down with history
With tasks to complete and ruthless rules to follow

Tear us from limb to limb and put us back tomorrow again- as you want to
What use are these rules if you’re not judging me every single day or every single year?
I might as well raise my hand and strike a life out of a living body the way you do
But I would never- maybe because I am not blessed like you
Maybe because I’m not pious like you.

PS: Perhaps my most controversial poem till date. I mean for it to be heavily sarcastic. Not sure how it comes across though!

Who, me?

December 16, 2016: I am constantly evolving and this text tends to get outdated pretty quickly. For now, I am a student of sustainability and justice, living in the US and focusing on climate change. This blog was started in 2010 when I was fresh out of school and was told to post some of my creative writing online. There was no agenda- just a desire to express, which grows, diminishes and then grows back again. When it comes to this blog, I simply go with my instincts and desires without taking myself too seriously. This is my happy place and also the place where I am able to construct the best version of myself. But I am not just reducible to this blog, with all its strengths and weaknesses; I wish I could express every nuanced emotion and thought here, but that would obviously be impossible. My desire to write stays as strong as ever but I am looking for that sweet spot now where I can gather enough determination and willingness to really WRITE. At the end of this day, this blog is just a space where I explore the writer in myself. Feel free to join me on this journey!

George Lakoff has retired as Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley. He is now Director of the Center for the Neural Mind & Society (cnms.berkeley.edu).

Gorakhpur Environmental Action Group (GEAG) is an NGO that undertakes development initiatives to impact positively the lives of the poor, deprived and marginalized sections of the society through a people-centred approach focusing on their participation, awareness and empowerment for sustainable development.

In partnership with the Climate Policy Journal (CPJ). We provide a space for climate policy experts to share views on selected CPJ articles, Climate Strategies outputs and other key debates in international climate change politics.